


here we are as in olden days

by lazyfish



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bad Girl Shenanigans (kind of), Christmas Cookies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfish/pseuds/lazyfish
Summary: Jemma and Fitz ask Skye to join in on their tradition of baking Christmas cookies together.
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 44





	here we are as in olden days

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bad_ash10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bad_ash10/gifts).



“Skye! Skye! Skye!”

This must’ve been a dream of some sort. Skye couldn’t remember the last time Jemma had pounded on her door this hard, if it had ever happened at all. Normally she was the one rousing Jemma and Fitz to get into trouble - sorry, _bad girl shenanigans_ \- with her. Why would Jemma choose the week before Christmas to start getting into trouble? Skye groaned, sitting up and rubbing blearily at her eyes. At least when she went pounding on doors it wasn’t five o’clock in the morning. Curse Fitz-Simmons and their internal clocks permanently set to GMT.

Skye crawled across the bed and swung open the door to her bunk before Jemma could begin another round of insistent knocking. They were lucky Coulson and May hadn’t heard and started demanding answers. They would ask _Skye_ questions and she was still very, very confused as to why Jemma was hustling her out of her room without even letting her change out of her pajamas.

There was a whiteboard hung up on one of the cabinets in the small kitchenette of the BUS, Jemma’s neat handwriting filling the entire thing. Skye squinted, trying to make out the bright red-and-green writing.

“A dozen snowballs… two dozen gingerbread cookies… a sheet of brandy snaps… Jemma, what the hell?”

“Christmas cookies!” Jemma announced, as if it wasn’t obvious already. “Fitz and I used to make them at the Academy, and I thought maybe you’d like to help us this year.” 

Skye blinked, stunned. Had she ever made Christmas cookies before? She had definitely been in a foster home for several of the Christmases in her life, but she couldn’t recall being included in the family tradition. Her favorite foster home, and the one she had been in the longest, was with a Jewish family, so they hadn’t made Christmas cookies, but Skye had learned how to fry some mean latkes.

She wasn’t Christian, as much as the nuns would’ve liked to pretend otherwise - Skye hovered somewhere between agnostic and apatheist, not that many had asked - but being included in the tradition made her feel warm all the way down to her toes. 

“Yeah, sure.” She managed not to embarrass herself by bursting into tears, instead giving Jemma a bright smile. “What do you need me to do?”

“I have a plan,” Jemma said, handing her a piece of paper. Skye blinked. It was like what was written on the whiteboard, but in much more painstaking detail. Skye’s name was highlighted in blue each time it appeared in the plan - Fitz’s was in orange, and Jemma’s in green. Skye didn’t even know they had a colored printer on the BUS. 

“The goal is to be done before lunch time. I was going to suggest doing it overnight, but Agent May is rather scary, and I don’t think she’d appreciate people knocking around in the cupboards while she’s trying to sleep.” 

(Skye wasn’t entirely sure May _did_ sleep, but she was also fairly convinced the woman had the entire BUS bugged, so she wasn’t going to admit that aloud.)

“Where’s Fitz?”

“Barricading the others in their rooms!” Jemma chirped. “We can’t have them distracting us. Or ruining our assembly line.”

And Jemma thought she was the bad girl. Skye had never - actually, she had barricaded people in their rooms before. Several times. But that didn’t make it right! Skye was still stuck in the middle of her emotions; there was confusion at being woken so early, joy at being included, perplexion at the secrecy of the whole scheme, and now a pinch of horror at how forcibly everyone else on the BUS was being kept out of it.

On cue, Fitz returned to the kitchenette, breathless. “It should hold at least until we get the first batch into the oven.” He snapped his fingers. “Let’s go!”

Skye focused on her instructions. She was in charge of making the gingerbread cookie base. Thankfully, Jemma’s precision in the laboratory extended into baking, and all of the ingredients were clearly labelled. Skye got caught up in the soothing repetition of measuring, stirring, and checking the next step. Jemma and Fitz were chattering, but it was mostly a soothing background noise to make this feel more like a voluntary project and not a cooking competition. (Skye would kick ass at Chopped. Which wasn’t relevant to the cookie-baking, but she thought as many people as possible should know, so she blurted it out and watched Jemma and Fitz grin at her like it was a perfectly reasonable assertion to make.)

“I’m afraid I wasn’t able to get enough sugar to make royal icing for the gingerbread people,” Jemma said as they slid Skye’s cookies into the oven. She was more than a little pleased she had finished first, but Skye was trying not to be obnoxious about it, since it wasn’t a waste. “I did get some candies, though, if we think those would work?”

Jemma produced bags of sweets seemingly out of nowhere, and Fitz’s eyes lit up. Skye resigned herself to having about half a bag of everything to use to decorate her gingerbread people when all was said and done. But before she could do that, she had to go onto the next cookie she was assigned.

“Uh, guys?” Skye furrowed her brow. “What the heck are brandy snaps?” She had seen the unfamiliar word on the white board but hadn’t given it much thought until learning she would be the one making the things.

Fitz and Jemma both stared at her like she had grown a second head. Skye felt a flush creeping onto her cheeks, but before she could cross the line from embarrassed to mortified, Fitz answered her.

“They’re a kind of biscuit,” he said. “I guess they don’t have them in the States, do they, Simmons?”

Jemma was chewing on her lip, brow deeply furrowed. “I thought for sure they did.”

“Did we see any in the Academy?”

“I don’t know!”

The discussion devolved into a squabble, and Skye went back to reading the unfamiliar recipe. She had no idea how they were supposed to turn out, despite Jemma’s meticulous instructions. Rolling a cookie into a cigar shape seemed like it would be hard, especially since they still had to be hot, according to the instructions.

“We can swap, Skye,” Fitz announced after emerging from his argument with Jemma. “You can do the shortbread biscuits and I’ll do brandy snaps.”

“Or all three of you can stop and explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to lock your supervising officers in their bunks.”

Skye turned around, and gulped. May’s arms were crossed over her chest, and she was glaring at the trio.

“Well, um…”

“You see, we…”

Neither of the scientists could come up with a coherent explanation, which meant it was up to Skye - just like she thought it would be from the beginning.

“Jemma and Fitz are teaching me how to make Christmas cookies. I’ve never done it before.”

“Never!?” Coulson appeared from around the corner, out of breath. He sounded scandalized by her lack of knowledge, and Skye shrunk in on herself.

“No…?”

“I’ll have to show you the Manitowoc special, then.” Coulson was already rolling up the sleeves on his button-up, and Jemma was too alarmed by the development to do anything more than step back and allow him access to the counter space.

“Phil…” May’s glare was now focused on Coulson instead of the three junior agents.

“Come on.” Coulson grinned. “It’ll be fun. Like the old days.”

Now Skye couldn’t let _that_ comment go. She needed to hear whatever story involved May and Coulson baking Christmas cookies together in the past. “Please, May?” She gave the older woman the widest puppy dog eyes she could manage. Jemma and Fitz did too, and Melinda May actually _cracked_. Skye was going to put that on her resume - foiled S.H.I.E.L.D.’s most badass agent with puppy eyes.

“But only if I get to teach you a recipe, too.”

Skye was back to thinking this was a dream. May baking cookies was one (totally outrageous) thing, but May offering to share a recipe? That was beyond even the scope of Skye’s imagination. Jemma looked a little put-out that her plan wasn’t going to come to fruition, but she was also obviously excited by May and Coulson’s unexpected participation. They hadn’t needed to be locked in their rooms after all.

“Quickly, before whatever’s in the oven burns,” May instructed. “Now, Skye…”

The sun began to rise, streaming in through the windows on the BUS. For just a moment, standing in the kitchenette of an airplane flying thousands of feet above the ground, Skye could pretend she had a family - a family who baked Christmas cookies together and laughed about the past and looked forward to the future.

If this was the whole joy of Christmas thing people always talked about in the movies, Skye thought maybe she could get used to it.

**Author's Note:**

> For @maos2013! Sorry for the tardiness, but I hope you enjoy this pinch-hit fic. :)


End file.
